Elmer Studios: Post-Modern

For the Elmer Studios team, it became a hard truth. Jobs, changing schedules, lack of free time and other such matters took their toll. The riffers were struggling to find time and energy to work, which resulted in a slowdown and eventually a halt. Projects were abandoned and left unfinished by the roadside, vanishing into the depths of e-mail archives and dead hard disks. With the imminent demise of Geocities, it seemed like Elmer Studios would simply vanish into internet history.

And then, inspired by these things as well as a particularly silly conversation, a pair of MSTers decided “let’s get back into the game”. What became a single idle thought quickly snowballed into a whole new MSTing, with plans for a lot, lot more.

Elmer Studios: The Lost Years

These two MSTings represent the “lost” Elmer Studios years, material done between the shutdown and the rebirth. While one of them is rather incomplete, it’s a good snapshot of where things were headed and how episode #151 may have ended up looking. The other is a side-project which, while not a part of Elmer Studios “continuity” (such as it is), was done by the same people in the same style and with more then a few familiar in-jokes.

Episode 151: The Wandering Star Saga, part two – Work in ProgressJust to reiterate the point, Krokojam is also an idiot.
And now, from the very depths of Rick R’s mail archives comes the lost Episode 151. Unfortunately, what was originally intended to be either a grand finale or an epic re-launch (the jury was still out on that much too) got way-laid by real life and other such minor inconveniences. Consequently, it was never completed beyond an initial run of riffs and some fragmentary host segments before all work was
abandoned.

However, all was not lost. The draft would shuffle between different e-mail accounts for several years before being rediscovered and, for the first time ever, released to the public. And, while it is rather painfully incomplete, there’s still certainly some good stuff to be had here. So sit back and enjoy the missing episode 151. Who knows, there may still be more to come. – Rick R.Riffers: Lightspeed, Sel Magyari, Alistair Woof Growl-Yip, Rick R. MorrisWritten by: Zogster and Rick R

Bonus Continuity Theatre: Old Conflicts RenewedAt least I have a life outside this fic. You were created to be spanked.
What’s like an Elmer Studios MSting, but isn’t? How about a MSTing by the former Elmer Studios crew in the style of Elmer Studios using many of the running gags from Elmer Studios in the format for Elmer Studios. Something like that?

Written for a now-defunct Zoids fanfic bitching community, Old Conflicts Renewed was an MSTing of an infamously bad Zoid fic that had managed to somehow become fanon within the fandom –specifically, the vile sort of fanon that is mistaken for canon by idiots and, as such, leads to a generation of self-replicating errors within subsequent generations of badfics. Yeah, that sort. That it’s about an unbearable god-boy who walks all over the canon cast while demonstrating no knowledge of grammar, structure, punctuation, dialogue, spelling, descriptive prose or, even, the English language makes it just that much more awful.

I will admit straight up that the MSTing is rather in-jokey, not only to the Zoids fandom but, specifically, the community for which it was written. However, at the same time, there’s still plenty of good stuff to be had here. And, if you look very carefully (well, not really), you’ll find an old reference or two. Or seventy.Riffers: Sandra Blackmore (Not that one. Or the other one), Tasch Storemer, Christina McCade, Tara Squamanta

Written by: Zogster and Rick R; guest riffs by Koobine

The pretty damn awesome Elmer Studios episode guide!

Episode 201: Rebuild of DELTA, part one How bad can it be?
In a moment that is both alien and strangely familiar, previous continuity is disregarded in favour of going running of wildly in some nonsensical direction. Instead of a bunch of intellectual themes and concepts and such that the source material was all about, we instead get a fic that is centered on two things. The first is the need for gratuitous over the top violence (and more explosions then Michael Bay on speed), and the second is, of course, the presence of an omnipotent self-insertion character to stomp all over the cast and be the center of the universe. Features Instant Parental Angst and special guest dialogue by Tommy Weisau! Riffers: Dan, Rebecca Bartley, Tsuneo Tataeo and Rick R. MortisWritten by: Zogster and Rick R

Episode 202: Rebuild of DELTA, part two I think they’re the product of a five-year-old describing things to his comic artist brother
What could be more exciting then Tom Dyron cooking breakfast? How about Tom Dyron cheating on a maths test? Or Tom Dyron ordering at an Italian restaurant? Or Tom Dyron talking about his motorcycles? Or Tom Dyron playing basketball? Oh, all right, if you insist we’ll have an attack by enigmatic alien creatures and the revelation of their unusual nature, but really, that’s not why I read Evangelion fanfic. I read it for the gripping menu-reading action. You should too.
Riffers: Dan, Rebecca Bartley, Tsuneo Tataeo and Rick R. MortisWritten by: Zogster and Rick R

Episode 203: Transformers: Prime Directive #1 Dull Surprise!
When a comic is called Transformers, features Transformers on the cover and half of the dialogue is variations on the word “transform”, then not actually featuring any Transformers doesn’t make it clever. It makes you look stupid. And certainly after slogging through six thousand pages of Mr Lazarus spouting Anime Villain Clichés, you’ll feel stupid as well. A professionally written and published comic book, this still feels like somebody’s bad fanfic gone rouge. Features a last page twist that isn’t even a twist!

This MSTing was actually begun as a “classic” Elmer Studios MSTing, then abandoned. That’s right; its taken ten years to get here, and yet that’s still a better workrate then Pat Lee managesRiffers: Rebecca Bartley, Natasha Isavia, Matt Simmons and Rick R. MortisWritten by: Rick R

Episode 204: Rebuild of DELTA, part threeNew Release! Once again, the girls are rendered useless while Tom gets to do all the awesome cool stuff.
There is an inherent dichotomy to DELTA Invasion, one that becomes no more apparent then in the third chapter. This chapter features not one but two of the series acclaimed battle sequences, both of them loopy and incoherent messes that read more like pro-wrestling bouts interspersed with explosions and ludicrous gibs that exist mainly to make Tom look good. They’re nonsensical, defying all laws of time, space and reality and make for such terrible reads that you wish they were over. But then you get to the attempts at characterisation, which are not only shallow and stilted, but also are largely nonsense that exits only to make Tom look good. They’re so drawn-out and pointless, that you wish that the fic would get to a fight scene. See?Riffers: Dan, Rebecca Bartley, Tsuneo Tataeo and Rick R. MortisWritten by: Zogster and Rick R

Episode 205: Rebuild of DELTA, part four Work in Progress! I swore on my father’s grave that I would not rest until I had won an entirely unrelated fighting tournament.
A dark shadow from Tom’s generic tragic past looms incredibly large over the cast? He’s Jeff Garyn, he’s your worst nightmare (Not mine, by the way, but maybe yours) and he wants No Witnesses! Years ago, he killed Tom’s Uncle and now he’s back to finish the job. How will Tom deal with this new threat? He does what any man would do – enter a martial arts tournament and effortlessly crush one-line generic jobbers (It’s what any man would do). Will Tom win? Will Jeff have No Witnesses? Will we care? Oh, and there’s also something about enigmatic alien Invadors. Maybe. It's hard to tell and sure as heck I'm not bothering to check.Riffers: Dan, Rebecca Bartley, Tsuneo Tataeo and Rick R. MortisWritten by: Zogster and Rick R